Playlist: Bookmarks
Random Emoji Prompt Generator
Click up an interesting, visual writing prompt suitable for any grade or purpose.
Categorize and Re-Categorize Animals
Put these animals into groups. Then do it again. Then… do it one more time. How does re-re-grouping the same creatures reveal new patterns and give new insights?
Back to School: Rewriting The Beatles’ “Help!”
Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles’ song Help!?
Not Like The Others: Ants of the World!
Four ants from around the world. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Animal Adaptation Tournament
Which animal has the most interesting, most valuable, or strangest adaptations?
Writing in Pilish
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?
Analyzing Conflict with the Content Imperatives
How to go deep into conflict using the Content Imperatives.
Not Like The Others: Natural Disasters
Four natural disasters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Not Like The Others: Creatures of the Tundra
Four tundra creatures. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
The Tournament of Biomes
Want to move beyond memorizing the characteristics of biomes? In this lesson, students work through a Tournament of Biomes, explaining which biome wins in each round (based on criteria you choose). In the end, they crown a 👑 Champion Biome!
Notice, Wonder: Climber
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Math Curiosity: The Coloring Problem
No video gets me more email from students! How few colors can you use to color in any map so that no two, neighboring regions are the same color?
The Resiliency Tournament
Your students will set up a tournament to determine which person or character best demonstrated resiliency.
Building Creative Analogies
We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.
Showing A Character’s Trait
We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.
Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity
Your students will use Depth and Complexity to note how a character’s main trait changes across a story.
Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 2
We’ll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with a reason, a prepositional phrase, and a simile.
Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 1
‘Add more variety!’ teachers say. But how? This lesson gives students actual techniques instead of vague advice.